A Merger by Marriage (Las Vegas Nights 2)

“You’re not?” Scarlett looked scandalized at the thought.

“Lots of married couple don’t,” Harper said. “My parents being one of them.”

And their marital separation was what had led to Ross’s numerous affairs and the two daughters he’d never acknowledged. Or maybe his affairs had led to his estrangement from his wife. Violet had never asked Harper what she thought. As close as the three girls had become in the last five years, some topics remained uncomfortable.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Harper continued. “I mean, how well do you know JT?”

“Not as well as she’s going to get to know him,” Scarlett put in slyly.

Violet shot her a repressive look. “I don’t know how to explain it, but he feels like family. I know until recently that Tiberius refused to have anything to do with him, but he talked so much about his sister and what life was like for JT as a kid, I feel as if I know him.” She regarded each of her sisters, trying to gauge if she was making sense.

“I get how sometimes you can feel as if you know a person even though you’ve never met,” Harper said, a note of tension in her voice. “But often the reality is very different and you have to be careful.”

Was Harper referring to JT or her own problems with celebrity chef Ashton Croft, whose latest restaurant was supposed to have opened in Harper’s Fontaine Ciel hotel two weeks earlier? The charismatic executive chef-turned-television sensation was unconventional and passionate about food and adventure. Since starting negotiations with Harper for the restaurant, he’d been a thorn in her side with one outrageous demand after another.

Violet suspected her sister had been a Chef Ashton fan long before the restaurant deal. Harper’s DVR was filled with Croft’s television series, The Culinary Wanderer, in which he traveled around the world in search of the perfect meal. Why such an adventurous wanderer appealed to someone as methodical and strategic as Harper, Violet would never understand.

“I’ll admit that what I know of JT is already proving incomplete.” Violet considered what she’d learned over breakfast. He’d opened up to give her a glimpse into his past. A happy moment in what she suspected was a turbulent childhood. “But I don’t think he has any intention of cheating me.” And any heartbreak that happened would be because she’d let it.

Harper shook her head. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

“So do I,” Violet muttered. “So do I.”

* * *

JT should have known that letting Violet’s optimism rub off on him was reckless, but he’d been seduced by her earnest smiles and luminous brown eyes. Now, with a tumbler of excellent scotch on his knee, he allowed his gaze to drift around his cousin’s mahogany-paneled study and tried not to let his disappointment show.

“Sorry, JT.” Brent looked as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. “My dad sold the shares to Preston five months ago. You’re welcome to the hundred I received on my eighteenth birthday.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather you remain a stockholder and help me convince the rest of the family that my dad’s management isn’t doing the company any favors.” No wonder Tiberius hadn’t created a file on Brent’s father. What was the point when the shares were already lost? “Any idea why your father sold the shares to my dad? It’s not as if the two of them got along.”

Brent snorted. “That’s an understatement. My dad hated yours. He blamed Preston for your mom’s death.”

Brent’s father Ted was Tiberius and Fiona’s first cousin. He’d been as close to them as a sibling, but Ted and Fiona’s relationship had grown a bit strained over what had happened to Tiberius When Brent’s dad had told Fiona her husband was out of control, she’d resolutely defended her husband. Preston became a sore spot between them, but their love remained as strong as ever.

“Then why did he sell him the shares?”

“After it happened, he felt horrible. Preston convinced him that your mom wanted more shares for you.”

“Your father didn’t remember that my mom’s been dead for eighteen years?”

Brent grimaced. “I knew then I had to get power of attorney and take over his finances.”

“He’s getting worse faster than you expected, isn’t he?”

“His lucid moments are fewer and fewer.” Father and son had enjoyed a close connection that JT had long envied.

“Sorry,” JT said. “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you.”

“Most people can’t.” Ted had been an intelligent, intuitive businessman. It had to be tearing Brent apart to lose his

father this way. To watch him slip away a little more each day, knowing there was no way to ever get him back. “It’s tough watching a clever, bold businessman like my father forget the dog’s name or where the kitchen is in the house.”

The deep throb in Brent’s voice made JT’s chest hurt. “Is there anything you need? Anything I can help with?” He regretted that in his preoccupation with his own troubles, he’d not kept up with his cousin the way a friend should.

Brent cleared his throat. “That’s the worst of it. There’s nothing anyone can do.” He swallowed the last of his scotch. “But I appreciate the offer. You’re not just family, you’re a good friend.”

A year apart in age, they’d spent time together as kids, forming bonds that made them close as adults. Fiona Stone had often traveled to Charlotte to visit her favorite cousin. JT remembered how, in this Neoclassical-style house, built more than a hundred years ago, his mother hadn’t needed drugs or alcohol to cope with her life. She’d smiled all the time and given him big hugs and spoiled him with ice cream sundaes and trips to the zoo and museums. Getting his mother back had been like a miracle. But neither the trip nor his mother’s happiness could last forever.